This one was the “first offence.” If you like it, it is mine; but of course if any one is going to get mad about it, then another fellow, one of the dead ones, was its author. Is not its sentiment exquisite? AN EPITAPH WHICH CANNOT BE USED TOO SOON. Here lies a judge, whose last words I indite: “I’ll go to Heaven—I’ll go this very night.” He died as with himself he yet conversed; _As usual_—his decision was reversed. Another of great beauty and singularly apt. I have a shrewd suspicion that it refers to the same person: TO A VERY LEARNED JUDGE. His Honor is wrong, in error, unwise. He blunders in every case that he tries; With “Wisdom” he will not compromise. So I asked him the reason why. The judge replied, after due reflection, “To ‘Wisdom’ I have a good objection: She had nothing to do with my election.” “I agree with you,” said I. Still another, evidently referring to the same respected jurist. It is a lofty and improving message from the Bench. I am very partial to this one: HEARD IN COURT. I’ve changed my mind. Oh, no, I haven’t! Did I? What? I charged that way? No, indeed! I did! I mean that I said, No. Yes, Yes! I did not. Then I will charge it. What? My meaning hid? My former rulings? I forget them, curse it! My opinion is not quite clear, and I reverse it! Modesty restrains me from mentioning the author of this glittering example of pure idealism: THE COLONEL. The colonel lay dying. An angel appeared. This man of great family and titles he cheered, “Fear not, to a better place you will be borne,” The colonel’s reply was—“To Hell with reform!” After a certain assistant district attorney, noted for his verboseness, had made his closing argument, the jury convicted the composer of this couplet. He seems to resent it: THE JURY. To call them twelve trees would be nothing unkind; They were crooked and green; they were swayed by the wind. To an assistant district attorney who proved nothing but his own desire for notoriety and his ability to make a noise and keep the Court of Appeals busy. Those who heard him sum up the first important case he ever had, and the one on which rests his reputation (for brutality and unfairness), may remember and see the application to a certain part of his closing address: He persecutes the charming “Bell,” His “brazen tongue” has now full “swing,” With clamorous lies he “told” this “knell,” Produce, produce, produce the—“ring.” AN EPITAPH TO AN “ABLE ASSISTANT.”